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by PaperRevolution



Series: The Opposite of Prodigal [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1910s, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Family, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 14:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12344133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: On an afternoon spent with her cousins, Aredhel realises a shocking truth.





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**Author's Note:**

> Takes place approximately three years after "Game".

“They burned it to the ground! The whole house!”

Aredhel does not know why her cousin sounds so pleased about this; why anything that means They are nearby is something to get excited about.

But then, Celegorm has always had a fascination with Them. He and Curufin seem to fancy themselves future assassins of the underlings of Morgoth; invincible. Or something like that.

Cross-legged on the threadbare carpet of her aunt and uncle’s once grand living room, Aredhel sifts through pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Slotting a piece of bright blue sky into the picture that she and the twins are assembling, she says:

“I bet we won’t ever be allowed outside anymore, now.”

Amrod and Amras look at her sadly. They are younger than Aredhel, and she knows—because she has heard her aunt Nerdanel say so—that they hang onto every word she says.

“Not ever?” asks Amrod.

“What about food and things?” Amras puts in, “What will we do?”

Aredhel shrugs. “My mother and father will take care of us,” she says importantly, because she knows that it’s true.

“Your father can’t do anything,” Curufin twists in his seat, propping his elbows on the arm of the sofa and looking down at them. “He’s a dolt.”

“Curufinwë!” Aredhel hears, and glances over towards the window seat, where her brother and eldest cousin are huddled over an old atlas whose yellowing pages she is fairly certain they aren’t supposed to be writing on like that. Both boys have lifted their heads from whatever it is they’re doing and are wearing near-identical expressions of indignation, but it it’s Maedhros who has spoken.

“Uncle Nolo is not a dolt,” he goes on, pushing stray strands of russet hair impatiently out of his face. “He’s just as clever as Father—even if Father doesn’t think so.”

Fingon nods earnestly. “You take that back, Kurvo!”

“What exactly,” asks Maglor mildly, “Does this have to do with Father?” Curled up sleepy-eyed in the overstuffed armchair, Aredhel has the impression that he has not really been following the conversation.

Maedhros makes an impatient noise, crinkling his nose. “Kurvo copies everything Father says,” he replies. “If Father told him to jump off a cliff, I bet he would.”

So would you, Aredhel thinks, but does not say.

“So would you,” Celegorm does say, with a snort. “So shut your mouth.”

Aredhel does laugh, this time, but the sound trips and bubbles to a halt when she notices the look on Maedhros’ face. His mouth is all twisted up as though pained, but his eyes are curiously flat. Aredhel doesn’t like it. It makes her want to run away from him or throw her arms around him; she doesn’t know which.

“Don’t fight,” Amrod says plaintively, pulling the sleeves of his jumper down over his hands and wrapping his arms around his knees, drawing himself in. Amras darts a glance at him, birdlike, his grey-green eyes very wide.

Celegorm is dismissive. “We aren’t fighting—” he begins, but then the door swings open inwards, its hinges groaning in a loud complaint that makes them all look over.

There is a long moment wherein nobody says anything. Because Aredhel’s mother, standing in the doorway all loose limbs and sloped shoulders, looks like the kind of person the children’s parents have always tried to shield them from. She looks like someone whose world has come apart; someone entirely without hope.

“Mother?” Fingon says, suddenly uncertain. “Mother, is it time to go home?”

Anairë’s expression falters. She takes a breath.

Out in the hallway, the old grandfather clock begins, slowly and ponderously, to chime the hour.

“We’re staying here tonight,” Anairë’s voice is a thin thread, but she holds it steady.

And Aredhel realises, with a sudden flash of cold, horrible clarity, what the matter is.

He house that They burnt to the ground; the one that Celegorm heard the grown-ups talking about—it isn’t just any house.

It’s Aredhel’s family’s.

She can never go home.


End file.
